Chromaniac
Well-known member
I am hoping this is not against the terms of use of this particular forum. I am just going to post about my experience dealing with a regular member of this community who is currently offering hosting services through the brand name 'xenBoost'.
I have waited a long time to get my issue resolved and it looks like there is not going to be any resolution. So decided to post my experience here.
Disclaimer: I am only talking about my own experience dealing with xenBoost here.
Few months ago I was looking for a new webhost for my forum. I started a thread here on this community. I got a few suggestions along with a few offers through personal messages. I started discussion with Mike whose company is now named xenBoost.
His offering was pretty good and suited my need so I decided to give him a go. I paid for a month and moved my forum over. The service had a few performance related issues initially but I ignored them because I had moved to a VPS from a pretty powerful dedicated so it was expected.
Few days later, I decided to ask him for a second package for the rest of my sites. He offered me a shared package at no extra cost (I had prepaid for the entire year by this time). Pretty cool. These were low traffic site that only existed for archives and had little traffic. Still, getting free hosting was pretty good. I was fine with minor downtime here and there for maintanence.
Big mistake.
One day, I noticed a major downtime on the secondary hosting account. I sent a request for details. Eventually was told that the data was being migrated to a more powerful server and all should be fine in a few hours. After a few hours, I realized that only a few of my sites were operational. Sent a query again. Was told that all data was moved and everything was working fine. It was confusing. I checked using OpenDNS and some of the sites were just not responding.
Turns out, the data backup done by xenBoost was incomplete. So the sites were never transferred to the new server. Mike apologized for the lost sites. Not very cool.
<removed>
Let me explain the situation again. xenBoost decided to move all the sites from one server to another. Did not bother to inform me so that I can take backups myself. Did a ****ty job of migrating data from the old server to the new one. Erased the old server without pinging me to verify the migration job. In fact, I had to ping him again and again to get status updates. Eventually was told that the data was gone forever and he was sorry about that. Should mention here that few of the sites that disappeared were like 10 years old.
Ouch.
I had a 10 day old backup so all was not lost. I created a new account on Dreamhost. Migrated all my data to it. Once the migration was completely over, I sent a query for a refund. I should mention here that our original conversation regarding hosting never had any assurances about any refunds. Thankfully, he agreed to refund but not immediately.
Apparently he had some financial issues going on so he asked me to wait for a few weeks. More than 2 months passed by. He then talked about how the refund option had disappeared from his PayPal account (apparently it disappears after 2 months). I can only wonder if the 2 month delay was deliberate or the stories about financial hardship were true. He told me that he would get in touch with PayPal support for a manual refund.
<removed>
This was also around 1.5 months ago. He suggested that I wait for another month because refunds could take that much time.
I waited for a month. Pinged him for an update after the refund never arrived in my credit card account. He asked me to wait for a few days more. Today, I decided that enough was enough. I sent him snapshots of my credit card statement. Asked him to send me details about the PayPal refund confirmation so that I can contact PayPal myself and get an update from them.
What he told me today was well... Insulting. He said that he has shut down his old PayPal account for he had to make a new one for his new company. There is no way he can get any update regarding that refund which has still not arrived in my account. He wants me to wait for more time because 'it takes time to appear in my account'.
<removed>
I guess the money is never coming. If it ever does, I would definitely update this thread and apologize to Mike/xenBoost. I just had to rant out somewhere and I thought this place might be suitable.
PS: He might have a lot of happy clients on this forum. I am not going to dispute that. I am just seeking my own refund which has mysteriously been in cyberspace for the last month and a half.
PS: I have posted screenshots of personal messages here. I have checked. They do not contain any personal information.
Mods: Feel free to get rid of this thread if it violates any rules or laws. Cheers.
Lessons Learnt? Stick with branded hosting companies. Frankly enough, going with xenBoost was a stupid mistake because Dreamhost is turning out to be much more reliable and cheaper than what I was paying him for. Also should mention here that HostGator this week refunded me an accidental charge within 48 hours.
I have waited a long time to get my issue resolved and it looks like there is not going to be any resolution. So decided to post my experience here.
Disclaimer: I am only talking about my own experience dealing with xenBoost here.
Few months ago I was looking for a new webhost for my forum. I started a thread here on this community. I got a few suggestions along with a few offers through personal messages. I started discussion with Mike whose company is now named xenBoost.
His offering was pretty good and suited my need so I decided to give him a go. I paid for a month and moved my forum over. The service had a few performance related issues initially but I ignored them because I had moved to a VPS from a pretty powerful dedicated so it was expected.
Few days later, I decided to ask him for a second package for the rest of my sites. He offered me a shared package at no extra cost (I had prepaid for the entire year by this time). Pretty cool. These were low traffic site that only existed for archives and had little traffic. Still, getting free hosting was pretty good. I was fine with minor downtime here and there for maintanence.
Big mistake.
One day, I noticed a major downtime on the secondary hosting account. I sent a request for details. Eventually was told that the data was being migrated to a more powerful server and all should be fine in a few hours. After a few hours, I realized that only a few of my sites were operational. Sent a query again. Was told that all data was moved and everything was working fine. It was confusing. I checked using OpenDNS and some of the sites were just not responding.
Turns out, the data backup done by xenBoost was incomplete. So the sites were never transferred to the new server. Mike apologized for the lost sites. Not very cool.
<removed>
Let me explain the situation again. xenBoost decided to move all the sites from one server to another. Did not bother to inform me so that I can take backups myself. Did a ****ty job of migrating data from the old server to the new one. Erased the old server without pinging me to verify the migration job. In fact, I had to ping him again and again to get status updates. Eventually was told that the data was gone forever and he was sorry about that. Should mention here that few of the sites that disappeared were like 10 years old.
Ouch.
I had a 10 day old backup so all was not lost. I created a new account on Dreamhost. Migrated all my data to it. Once the migration was completely over, I sent a query for a refund. I should mention here that our original conversation regarding hosting never had any assurances about any refunds. Thankfully, he agreed to refund but not immediately.
Apparently he had some financial issues going on so he asked me to wait for a few weeks. More than 2 months passed by. He then talked about how the refund option had disappeared from his PayPal account (apparently it disappears after 2 months). I can only wonder if the 2 month delay was deliberate or the stories about financial hardship were true. He told me that he would get in touch with PayPal support for a manual refund.
<removed>
This was also around 1.5 months ago. He suggested that I wait for another month because refunds could take that much time.
I waited for a month. Pinged him for an update after the refund never arrived in my credit card account. He asked me to wait for a few days more. Today, I decided that enough was enough. I sent him snapshots of my credit card statement. Asked him to send me details about the PayPal refund confirmation so that I can contact PayPal myself and get an update from them.
What he told me today was well... Insulting. He said that he has shut down his old PayPal account for he had to make a new one for his new company. There is no way he can get any update regarding that refund which has still not arrived in my account. He wants me to wait for more time because 'it takes time to appear in my account'.
<removed>
I guess the money is never coming. If it ever does, I would definitely update this thread and apologize to Mike/xenBoost. I just had to rant out somewhere and I thought this place might be suitable.
PS: He might have a lot of happy clients on this forum. I am not going to dispute that. I am just seeking my own refund which has mysteriously been in cyberspace for the last month and a half.
PS: I have posted screenshots of personal messages here. I have checked. They do not contain any personal information.
Mods: Feel free to get rid of this thread if it violates any rules or laws. Cheers.
Lessons Learnt? Stick with branded hosting companies. Frankly enough, going with xenBoost was a stupid mistake because Dreamhost is turning out to be much more reliable and cheaper than what I was paying him for. Also should mention here that HostGator this week refunded me an accidental charge within 48 hours.
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